It’s because my job involves managing and operating systems that are only accessible through ssh or tty sessions. I spend hours every day in a terminal, on a remote session, frequently editing files for stuff: crontabs, configs, etc.

I learned vi because when I was coming up, university systems only had ed, vi and emacs, with pico on the servers that had pine for email. I learned vi because it was more powerful than pico (and because I couldn’t get the hang of emacs key combos). I read the help files and learned how to use it, because it was foundational.

Every Unix-like system has a variant of vi. Many of my container images don’t, but it’s trivial to install and use anywhere if needed.

It’s just a more powerful tool than nano, and consequently more difficult to use. Which is fine, man. It’s okay for you to use a basic text editor on the rare occasion you have to edit something in a terminal. You don’t have cause to learn how to be productive in an advanced editor, and that’s fine.

For what it’s worth, when I’m writing and testing python, I use VS Code.

See, you’ve realized your blunder, now. Tell us what editor you use in the terminal, ReCursing, the one that is better than vim. We’d love to know.

What’s the superior choice to vim, then?

Stockholm Syndrome was never real, it was made up to explain a situation where hostages recognized an injustice and refused to perpetuate it, so cops called them crazy. So sure, if you call me crazy for my affection for a tool that has served me well for decades, I’ll consider you a cop.

This sounds about right. My only quibble is about sick computers and web apps. Twenty years ago I felt good because all I needed was a text editor and a web browser. Nowadays, the hungriest apps on my desktop are Firefox and VS Code.

I use VS Code on the desktop nowadays, but vi will always be my editor of choice in a terminal. Many of the reasons it was powerful and ubiquitous 30 years ago are still valid, so it’s still powerful and ubiquitous. And I’ve been using it for thirty years, so why would I switch to a training-wheels editor?

You wouldn’t download a car

I hated Callisto Protocol because of the story so much that I quit rather than advance the narrative. When I couldn’t kill Dani Nakamura for murdering my partner and crashing my ship and locking me in her cell after I freed her, I quit. No thanks, she sucks, not interested in saving her under any circumstances.

UDP is yeet-based

What are they gonna call tweets now?

Bash isn’t the only shell. Most systems can use zsh or fish or tcsh or whatever shell you prefer, if you like that better than bash. You’re gonna have to run a shell if you want to use the terminal, though, you understand that?

Shell scripts are very good for specific tasks. Don’t use them for tasks that are unsuitable. Use python or go or node or c if those are better for your needs. Use the right tool for the job. But also, learn to understand why the industry has been using shell scripts for decades.